13 Limitation

"Altea, give me aim assist," Ed asked the Ai to help him with his marksmanship.

"I'm sorry Captain, the C-2 doesn't have any module that assists with accuracy, you will need to aim manually." the AI could not help him.

"Fine, how can I shorten the distance between us? C-2 doesn't have a long-range option, so it surely has a solution for fighting ranged enemies, right?" he reasoned with the AI.

"C-2 currently has no booster to increase acceleration further, its flying speed is already faster than most medium mecha since its energy allocation if to the propulsion system and the holocaust engine"

"Estimate arrival to target is 3 minutes," the AI informed him.

"That is too long. When that time comes they would have crippled C-2's arm," he thought as he tried to get closer with the red mecha.

He kept firing at the mecha to force it into an evasive maneuver, as the maneuver would slow its backward movement.

At first, he barely hit anything, but the closer he got, the more accurate his accuracy became. Just as he was about to get into melee distance, Altea's voice should be heard as it warned him.

"The other enemy mecha is getting closer from behind, it seems that they want to outnumber you in melee."

He looked at the sensor data before estimating that the other mecha would reach him in fifty seconds.

"I don't have enough time to finish this one," he thought as he had no more trick up his sleeve.

The closer Mecha got rid of its laser rifle and two hidden blades popped out of its arms. It parried Ed's scythe as he tried to attack its side.

His opponent was better in piloting than he himself, Ed was barely able to keep up with the rifleman's faster move.

The red mech parried his scythe with one of its blades and used the other one to counter-attack. It was aiming at the C-2 chest where the cockpit was.

Ed was barely able to tilt his mech to the side, so the blade pierced the C-2's upper abdomen rather than the chest area.

"5 seconds until collision," Altea warned him about the accelerating mech behind him. It had built up such momentum and about to use both of its hidden blades to finish him off.

Rather than disengaging with his current opponent, the C-2's right arm let go of its scythe and grabbed the offending mecha's free arm to stop it from attacking while using the other arm to hug the opposing mech so it was unable to disengage from him.

"2 second until collision," the AI reminds him once more.

Just as the accelerating mecha about to hit him, Ed used the C-2 secondary weapon on its left arm at rapid-fire.

The recoil of the scattergun sent both mechas that were locked with each other to spin in the space, just as the red mecha was between it and the other mecha, Ed used the other arm's scattergun to stop their rotation.

The accelerating mecha had too much momentum and it could not stop itself in time as both of its blades pierce its companion's cockpit.

The momentum was so great that the blade even pierce the mecha and continued to pierce C-2's chest plate, but the blade was not long enough to go further into Ed's cockpit.

Ed used that chance to disengage with his opponent and assess the damage on his mecha.

"Altea, Damage report," he commanded.

"Power reactor damaged, performance dropped to 70%, structural damage 23%, time estimated until full recovery, 25 minutes," the AI reported.

"Fuck! That is worse than I thought, luckily it did not fully immobilize my mecha. Holocaust engine is not omnipotent after all," he thought as he was readying himself for another exchange with the newcomer.

A minute could already decide life and death as most fights would not last longer than half an hour, of course, that did not mean the holocaust engine was useless, it still gave him an edge, his mecha could take more damage than it supposed to be.

"Captain, there is another attempt at communication from the enemy," Altea told him.

"Oh, let's receive this one, the longer we talk the better it is for us," he smiled.

The moment it connects, Richard's angry face appears in front of him, "You bastard, I will kill you if I don't then my name is not Richard!" the man angrily declared.

Ed chuckled at the man, "If you are able to do so then please be my guest, but it seems that two of your men are not good enough to kill me," she said in a smile to infuriate the man further.

"Don't regret your word!" the man screamed as he accelerated his mech toward him.

Rather than fight him head on, the C-2 darted backward to buy some time for it to recover a little bit more.

But with lowered performance, the alien mecha could not outrun its opponent. The rifleman mech got into the C-2's scythe range in a few seconds.

Ed tried to hit the incoming mecha, but it agilely ducks down and bypassed the scythe, and got closer to the C-2.

A giant scythe was a heavy weapon, it had great strength and could pierce a thick shield and armor but it came at a cost. The movement is not that fast and once someone gets too close; the scythe becomes unable to hit them.

The red mecha was about to hit him but Ed was prepared for such a scenario, he knew that if he showed such a big opening, his angry opponent would fall for it.

The C-2 pulled its scythe back while both of its secondary weapons and propulsion system came alive, sending him backward out of the red mecha's range.

The red mecha hit nothing, and the scythe hit it on its flight system, slowing it down as the damage almost made it unusable.

Such a move was only possible because It was moving backward and it did not take much for the mecha to accelerate back and put some distance with its opponent, if it was on forward maneuver then the scythe would have become useless and its opponent would score a hit.

Without its flight system, the red mech could not even get close to the C-2, it could float there as Ed circle toward its back so it could not hit him.

"You pirate bastard! Just you wait! You..." the mad mercenary was cursing nonstop until Ed cut off from the communication channel.

"So noisy, If you could not even fight a newbie, then you should not talk big," he grumbled as he raised the C-2's scythe and finished the immobile mecha.

Ed was still celebrating his win when Altea interrupted him, "Captain, target alpha shows sign of about to activate its warp drive."

"Can we stop them?" he asked the AI.

"You can use the red mecha's rifle to hit them, the frigate will not be able to initiate its warp drive if you hit it with a direct energy weapon," it explained.

The C-2 directly picked up the rifle and pointed it toward the fleeing frigate while accelerating after it, without any mecha to stop it, the C-2 could get closer to it without trouble.

The ship was about to finish the preparation to activate its warp drive when he was finally able to hit it; it did not take long before it finally got into melee distance.

The C-2 landed on top of the frigate with its rifle and scythe pointed toward the cockpit.

"Altea, connect to their communication channel," he commanded.

"It's connected," the AI dutifully reported.

"Turn off your warp drive and fly back to the alien wreckage or I will just kill everyone and take what is left of this ship afterward," he threatened the crew.

Ed was not against killing them since they tried to kill him, but if he could make use of them, then he would not shy away from it.

"I will just make them wear obedience collars and then make them crew my ship, it's better than killing them outright," he smiled as he would finally be a ship captain since he got his own crew.

The people inside the frigate agreed since the frigate did not have any way to fight a mecha head-on, it did not take long for them to get back to Alpha-Charlie.

Once they arrived back at the Alpha-Charlie, Altea took full control of the frigate before Ed could stop pointing his weapon at the cockpit.

"Chaser-1's hangar is open, you can get in captain," the AI reported.

"Can you prepare obedience collars for them?" He asked.

"Daemo don't practice slavery, but I can prepare something similar," the AI replied.

"Then please do so, I want everyone to be in my control," he said.

Ed moved everyone into a prison room inside Alpha-Charlie so it would be easier for him to control them. They could obediently get into the prison as he threatened them with his mecha.

"It seems being a pirate is not that bad," he thought as he remembered the adrenaline rush he felt when fighting inside a mecha.